The franchise network is a highly complex creature. It comprises a number of stakeholders, each of which plays a critical role in the franchise’s success. It’s primarily about the relationship between a franchise and its franchisees.
Managing the complexity of the “franchise network” effectively is so important that this topic made it on my list of 5Fs of Franchise Marketing, which I cover in more detail in my book Franchise Fame: An insider’s marketing guide to incremental growth and soaring success.
But to give you a preview of how to manage it and share three key steps for franchise success, let me set the scene below.
Setting the scene
As a franchisor, you’ve spent years building up your business, refining and developing your business model so all parties in your franchise network benefit from it. However, not all franchisees are built the same, meaning some may perform better than others. Ultimately, you want your entire franchise network to perform optimally.
The reasons behind this include having a stronger brand reputation, which results in happy and loyal customers. Plus, it’s about fewer costs, time and resources spent on mitigating reputational and other damage. So, what can you do to ensure that your franchise network operates optimally? Here are my three suggestions.
Implement alerts for performance that falls under a minimum acceptable threshold
My first piece of advice is to implement alerts that indicate when a franchisee is performing under the minimum acceptable threshold. This means taking numerous factors into consideration, including:
- Lower comparative revenue, total sales and royalties earned
- Marketing underperformance or inconsistencies
- Dissatisfied customers
- The franchisee’s attitude toward the brand
- Lack of operational proficiency
- Poor planning and implementation
- Low engagement with the rest of the franchise network
While some of these are tangible and others less so, franchisors should create minimum thresholds for acceptable performance and regularly monitor franchisees against these. Once an underperforming franchisee has been identified, you should have a plan that brings them back on track. As part of this plan, you should have regular meetings with them, discussing ways to improve their performance, giving them tangible to-do lists, leaving them to implement your recommendations and monitoring their performance after implementation within an acceptable timeframe.
Learn from your top performers
Secondly, just as you should monitor underperforming franchisees, you should also not neglect your top performers. When they are successful, you may be tempted to leave them to their own devices. But this would be detrimental to your franchise’s learning curve as knowledge-sharing is key for a successful franchise network.
Examples of factors to look into for your top performers include:
- What lessons have you learned from them?
- How are they applying your business model?
- What steps are they taking to ensure full compliance with your operational requirements?
You may find it helpful to share learnings and insights from your top performers with the weaker members of your network. Sometimes, small yet incremental steps are all that’s needed to bring your franchisees back on track.
Create a common marketing fund
And lastly, there is something to be said for your franchise marketing. Because it affects everyone in the franchise network, you must ensure you have clear standards for marketing activities so there is no brand dilution or deviation from your brand guidelines. For this reason, you may wish to create a common marketing fund that every franchisee contributes to in equal measure.
The purpose of this? A common marketing fund is an excellent way to ensure each franchisee feels that their work is being recognised, that their funds are going toward something useful and that they are investing back into the business. With their involvement and participation, you’re more likely to ensure uniformity and consistency that everyone will benefit from.
Conclusion
Monitoring your franchisee network should be done regularly and consistently. You should also set alerts for underperformance while also studying key lessons from your top performers. And to ensure your franchise marketing efforts aren’t diluted, consider creating a common pool of marketing funds or speak to an experienced franchise marketing agency to help guide your brand to greater heights while consistently helping each franchisee reach their potential.
